The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been taking angry flak again, this time for a scandalous cover mocking the discovery of plane wreckage on Reunion Island from missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.......

Ads

Malaysia confirmed early Thursday that a piece of a wing washed up on an Indian Ocean island beach last week was from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the first trace of the plane found since it vanished last year with 239 people on board.

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia confirmed early on Thursday that a piece of a wing washed up on an Indian Ocean island beach last week was from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the first trace of the plane found since it vanished last year with 239 people on board. "Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Prime Minister Najib Razak said in an early morning televised address. "I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that...

Malaysia confirmed early on Thursday that a piece of a wing washed up on an Indian Ocean island beach last week was from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the first trace of the plane found since it vanished last year with 239 people on board.

sand sculpture on the missing Malaysian flight with a message, ‘Pray for MH 370’, on Puri beach in Orissa-AFP
The search for Flight 370 may be literally turning full circle. Because of the ocean’s counter-clockwise currents, Gordon said, any remaining debris may have already moved around the clock and be heading east. That would take it back towards Australia and to where the search first began.
If it’s confirmed that a wing fragment found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean is from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, lost more than 500 days ago, could scientists use their knowledge of ocean currents to trace back its path and pinpoint the bulk of the wreck?
Australian oceanographer David Griffin says that would be akin to using modelling of big-city crowd flows to try to predict the travels of a random person encountered on the street. In short, next to impossible.
While Griffin and other oceanographers say the discovery on the island of Reunion fits in with their large-scale modelling of how debris drifts across the Indian Ocean, there remain a mind-boggling number of variables in the journey of any single piece of flotsam.
For instance, although Reunion is 4,200 kilometres (2,600 miles) from the current search site off the Australian coast, the wing fragment is likely to have zigzagged significantly farther than that.
Oceanographers say currents in the Indian Ocean generally flow counter clockwise, meaning that if the plane crashed near where authorities suspect, the fragment may first have drifted north toward the Indonesian island of Sumatra before turning west, travelling past India and finally heading south toward Reunion.
Even within that journey, there is likely to have been plenty of meandering. That’s because of the numerous squalls and storms in the Indian Ocean, many of which aren’t well recorded, not to mention tidal changes and the seemingly random channels of water that move counter to the general flow.
Griffin says even variables like how much the debris protrudes above the water will affect how much wind it catches, and its shape will influence how well it surfs down wave faces.
“The job we are trying to do now is to reverse the modelling and backtrack it,” said Griffin, who works for Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. “But really, the source could be anywhere in the east Indian Ocean.”
Griffin was among the scientists tasked in the weeks after Flight 370 disappeared with trying to predict where any debris might be floating. But extensive aerial searches at the time failed to locate even a single piece. Since then, he said, any small errors or biases in their modelling would have compounded over time, even before other variables are taken into account.
Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, also used computer modelling last year, managing to predict that any debris might end up somewhere near Madagascar or Reunion about now. He is also trying to reverse his modelling, but says it may end up being little more than an academic exercise.
“In terms of the search for the final resting place, this doesn’t make much of a difference,” he said. “It does help debunk the conspiracy theories, and give us confidence we are looking in the right place.”
Searchers have been using sonar and video to comb an expanse of remote ocean floor off Australia after an international team of investigators who analysed transmissions between the airliner and a satellite calculated that Flight 370 most likely crashed there. But after months of searching, they have found no sign of the plane.
Pattiaratchi said if searchers on the other side of the Indian Ocean find more debris, it could help triangulate a pattern of drift. A French law enforcement helicopter has been scouring the waters around the island in hopes of spotting more debris. Pattiaratchi said he hopes authorities expand the search into a broader area, including looking along the eastern coast of Madagascar.
There could also be other aspects of the wing fragment that yield clues, said Robin Beaman, a marine geologist at Australia’s James Cook University.
He said it would be worth studying the barnacles attached to the fragment to gauge their age, which might indicate how long the fragment had been adrift, and whether the barnacles are unique to a certain part of the ocean.
He said he suspects, however, the barnacles are likely to be of the “cosmopolitan” variety, found across many regions of the ocean.
Oceanographer Arnold Gordon, of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the amount of barnacles on the part are consistent with other debris he’s seen which has been in the ocean for more than a year.
“It’s been 16 months from the crash and everything fits together,” he said. “So I think the probability that it’s from 370 is pretty high.”
Gordon said the discovery will give confidence to the ocean floor searchers that they are looking in the right area. He said it’s possible, but unlikely, that more debris will wash ashore on Reunion. He also hopes that searchers will look at other nearby islands for debris.
In fact, the search for Flight 370 may be literally turning full circle.Because of the ocean’s counter clockwise currents, Gordon said, any remaining debris may have already moved around the clock and be heading east.
That would take it back toward Australia and to where the search first began.

With a new CEO and an evolving marketing strategy, the beleaguered airline is trying to rebrand and reinvent The past year has been a terrible one for Malaysia Airlines. On March 8, 2014, Flight 370 ...

Published March 03, 2015Associated Press Facebook0 Twitter0 Email Print FILE - In this March 31, 2014 file photo, a ghostly shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion is cast on low level cloud while the aircraft searches for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean, near the coast of Western Australia. Nearly a year has passed since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, sparking one of the most perplexing mysteries of modern times. Since then, search crews have taken to air, land and sea in a thus-far fruitless hunt for the plane and the 239 people who disappeared with it. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File) (The...

The views and opinions expressed in the articles or comments on this site are those of the speakers or authors and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions held by the operator Press Report.
Due to the nature of this site, the operator Press Report cannot be held accountable for the content in this web.
Press Report does not warrant the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of the information contained on this website.
If you have a complaint about something you have found on this web site, please Contact Us. (press-report@biz-portal.net)